Keely, Barbara Anne / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

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Barbara Anne, thank you so much for being interviewed,

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and if you could just say your full name please.

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Barbara Anne Keely.

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A-N-N-E, K-E-E-L-Y.

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Thank you, you anticipated my question,

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and are you lay or clergy?

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I am clergy, I am an ordained,

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I am an ordained teaching elder

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in the Presbyterian Church, USA.

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Thank you, that's perfect.

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And when and where were you born?

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March 6, 1952, in Tacoma, Washington.

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Okay, and where did you go to school,

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graduate, divinity school?

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I did bachelor's and first master's at the University

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of Washington, and speech communication with specialties

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in group process and interpersonal communication,

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I taught group process at the University of Washington,

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and Fuller Seminary,

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and then went to Princeton Seminary years later,

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after years of corporate nonprofit world,

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I went to Princeton's Seminary in my 30s and did my MDiv,

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and then went down to Richmond, Virginia to do my

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doctorate in education at the Presbyterian School

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of Christian Education, and I wanna be clear,

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that's where I did my degree,

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because it has since been swallowed

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by Union Presbyterian Seminary.

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Oh, well that is fascinating.

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I am one of about 12 people

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who got their doctorates from PSCE before it was swallowed.

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Is that right.

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What a fascinating background!

1:35

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Thank you.

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Great.

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And what kind of work or ministry were you doing at the time

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of Re-Imagining, the '93 conference?

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I moved to Minnesota in the summer of '91

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to become Assistant Professor of Christian Education

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at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities,

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and so I was teaching at United,

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and I was actually also leading the senior high youth group

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at Saint Luke Presbyterian in Wayzata.

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Oh, okay.

2:08

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Those two years, from '91 into '93.

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And do you wanna just say what kind of work in ministry

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you're doing now, because it's very interesting.

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Yep, after 24 years of teaching at United and doing

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parish ministry on the weekends,

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last June I retired from academic teaching and was called

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into interim ministry,

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and my prayer was that I would be called someplace where

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I could use the skills and interests I developed in all

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the years of teaching Christian Ed.,

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congregational spirituality, religious leadership,

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and church administration,

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and Presbyterian history worship and polity, and I was,

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I have been called and have spent almost now a year

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of my two years doing interim work of two churches in

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Wisconsin, Presbyterian churches in this Presbytery,

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in western Wisconsin,

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and things are thriving.

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That is wonderful.

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God is good.

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Yes, that is great.

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One last background question.

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Do you remember when and how you learned

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about feminist theology?

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Well, to tell you the truth,

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I learned about feminism,

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I learned that I was going to have to do it differently

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than men in the fifth grade at Saint Pat's

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in Tacoma, Washington, when the assistant priest

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came to

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teach the boys

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how to do the Latin mass and the rubrics,

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both Latin and the rubrics, to be altar boys,

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and, well, the boys were going to be taught by

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Father Belial, all the girls were invited to go down

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to the gym and read or play foursquare,

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or do something else, and that went on for weeks,

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and when it was time for the

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exam to be given,

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five of us girls,

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four of us who had older brothers who were altar boys,

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and another friend, five of us who hung out together,

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asked if we could take the Latin altar boy test,

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and the priest, of course, said no,

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and we said, well, why can't we, you know,

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we wanna know if we know it.

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And this fabulous lay woman that we had as a teacher

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this year, that fifth grade, said, Father,

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why won't you let them do it, it won't hurt anything,

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and it's a good learning process for them.

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And so we took it, and a week or two later,

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he came back to announce that after all these weeks

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of study, which boys had passed and would be allowed

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to be altar boys,

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and of course there were a number who had not passed,

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and could not be altar boys.

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At which point, Chris Handley,

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who was sitting one seat

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over and one seat up in the front row, right in front of me,

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raised her hand and said,

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well, Father, what about us girls?

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And she said, yes, Father, how did the five girls go, do?

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And this man, who had very light coloring,

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and very blonde hair,

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started to turn red from about halfway up his chest,

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all the way up over his face and head,

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and looked rather flustered, and looked and her, and said,

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I don't understand it, but all five of them passed.

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(laughing)

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And Chris, with a very appropriate voice, said,

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well, Father, we all go to mass five mornings a week,

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we're not stupid.

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And that was my realization that

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girls had to figure out how to learn things,

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'cause boys were gonna be taught, and girls weren't.

6:07

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Yes.

6:10

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And, um.

Years later, when I left the Catholic church,

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and pursued ordination, I thought it was,

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I was very tempted to go track down Father Belial and say,

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here I am!

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(laughing)

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It's not in Latin, but I'm gonna get ordained and preach.

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That is a great story, and boy,

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is that a perfect illustration.

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Well, the other piece that I will just throw in

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is the monsignor who was the

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head priest at our parish in Tacoma

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had told my parents when I was four

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that I had religious vocation and my calling was

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to be a Dominican Sister and teach religious education.

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No!

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Four years old!

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Four years old.

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Wow.

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I have pictures of he and I from that summer.

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Wow.

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And in my 40s, my mother,

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who had been raised Presbyterian and became Catholic

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when she married my dad, looked at me and said,

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you know, he wasn't far off.

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You have chosen to live as a celibate,

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you love the church,

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you have

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been ordained, no, she said,

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and you've gotten your doctorate in religious education

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to teach, and then she looked at me and laughed, and said,

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dear Monsignor, not even he could face what, 'cause,

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then, after I passed the altar boy test,

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I went over to the rectory and went to his office

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and sat down, and he was always glad to see me,

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we had a very special friendship.

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He taught my mother about wine, and took my dad,

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and my dad took him golfing, he was just, you know,

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surrogate grandfather.

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Yeah.

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And, um,

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he came and sat down and he said,

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what do we need to talk about?

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And I said, did you hear I passed the Latin altar boy,

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the altar boy test, and he said, yes, I heard,

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and I said, I wanna be on the altar with you.

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And he looked at me and he said, I understand,

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but you will make a very good nun.

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A very good sister, I think he said.

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And I was in my 20s before I realized what I'd wanted to say

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was, I wanna be on the altar like you, not just with you.

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Yes.

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But, um

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Wow.

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He taught me a lot.

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Anyway, that's another story.

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Yeah.

8:28

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That's, so, um.

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My introduction to real feminist theology

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was in Seattle,

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through, I was at University Presbyterian Church,

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Tall Steeple Evangelical Presbyterian Church,

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and a woman who was on the staff there

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and I were actually doing our master's in group process

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together at the University of Washington,

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she was a bit older than me,

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and she was very involved with,

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lost the title, Evangelical women's

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something,

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and I went to a couple of conferences,

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and I read, um,

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Mollenkott, and The Homosexual Is My Neighbor.

9:15

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Yes, yes.

9:18

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And, um, 'cause that made sense to me.

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I was doing the fundraising in the arts community,

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and I knew gay men.

9:24

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Yes.

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And, um,

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so, that, my introduction to feminist theology was through

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an Evangelical understanding,

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and even Mollenkott had done some work on

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feminist exegesis that fit

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within the Evangelical church.

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So, that was, and then I went to Princeton,

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and was introduced to a more liberal

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approach to theology,

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and exegesis, and, um,

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and my second year at Princeton,

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we hosted

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the women's

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seminary women's feminist,

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I can't think of what these organizations used to be called.

10:21

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Sure.

10:23

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But it included

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Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz,

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Letty Russell,

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I think

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Beverly Harrison, 'cause it was at Princeton, so,

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and one was at Drew, and one was at Union, and, you know,

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Yale, and so we sort of got people from around there.

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Yeah.

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And that's when I first heard and met Letty Russell,

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and started reading her stuff,

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and, um,

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five years later I was writing my doctoral dissertation

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on Letty Russell's Understanding of.

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Blanking.

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Letty Russell's work.

Feminist theology and its impact on Christian education,

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along with congregations.

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Wow.

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And, um,

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and, oh, oh, oh, and, um, um,

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it, we published a book.

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It was the um,

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Inheriting Our Mothers' Gardens.

11:29

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Oh, yes, yes!

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That book came out of that conference.

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Oh, it did!

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Oh, my goodness!

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And those women are in there.

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Oh, wow.

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That is fantastic.

11:38

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And that was my introduction.

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I remember sitting in the auditorium at Princeton, going,

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oh, my gosh, this isn't dead white guys from Europe.

11:42

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Yes.

11:47

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And that just--

11:49

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What a great experience.

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Yeah, yeah, and it,

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and, you know, I've always been,

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a part of me will always be Evangelical,

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because it makes sense to my relationship with God.

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Yeah.

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And, um.

So, that sort of stuck, I knew I wasn't too off the wall,

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until I got to the exegesis stuff,

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that definitely was not Evangelical.

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But, that's how I got to it, and so,

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then I went to Richmond, Virginia, and did my doctorate,

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and did it on Letty, and I moved to

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Minneapolis in '91, having finished that dissertation,

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and having worked with and stayed with Letty,

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which was cool.

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Wow.

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And, um,

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and, I arrived fall of '91,

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and within two or three months of being on the faculty,

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I was asked to

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be the United Seminary Faculty Representative

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on the planning committee for the Re-Imagining conference.

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Actually, I think Mary asked me.

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Mary Bed--

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Bednarowski.

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Bednarowski.

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Yeah, tell me about that, I would love to hear about that,

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your memories of that, what that planning process was like,

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and memories of Sally Hill, whatever comes to mind.

13:05

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Almost all of our meetings happened

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down, at a building on Franklin,

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where all the churches were headquartered at that point,

13:17

because Sally was the director of the Twin Cities'

13:20

Council of Churches, which ceased to exist after that.

13:26

They decided they didn't need to spend money on that

13:31

when we had, each city had their own council of churches

13:35

and we had the Minnesota Council of Churches

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that Sally was actually housed in with the Minnesota

13:40

Council of Churches.

13:44

So, we had their support, and, um,

13:47

and I also knew Mary Ann Lundy,

13:51

who was at the Presbyterian church offices.

13:54

I had actually interviewed with her to take a position,

13:59

and,

14:03

and of course, had not,

14:07

but instead, had come to the Twin Cities,

14:08

and become the youth director where her ex-husband was

14:11

the pastor, so, all the Lundy, yeah, so,

14:14

I worked with Dick Lundy and I knew Mary, and Mary Ann,

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and, so, there were all kinds, so, when Sally said,

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well, you know, and our connection is Mary Ann Lundy,

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you know, I know her, so, it all,

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it sort of gave me a place to get to know people

14:28

as I was new in the community.

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Right.

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And so, the people I got to know were Kay,

14:36

Mary Kay Sauter, and Kathi Austin Mahle, and Sally Hill,

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who were all women clergy,

14:42

UCC Methodist Presbyterian who had all graduated

14:44

from United, and of course,

14:47

that's just continued to build up my understanding

14:49

of what United meant in this community,

14:52

and what we had to offer for the Re-Imagining conference,

14:55

and,

15:00

and by the time I had joined,

15:01

I think they had already been meeting for almost a year,

15:03

and so, people were already, you know,

15:06

working with speakers, and working on,

15:10

actually, no, it had not been that long,

15:12

because

15:15

I was at the meeting

15:17

when, um,

15:20

we were trying to come up with what we were gonna call it,

15:24

and

15:27

somebody said,

15:29

well how about

15:33

Imagining,

15:35

and somebody said, how about Re-Imaging,

15:36

and what got written up was Re-Imagining.

15:38

And, and I remember some people go, wow,

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and I'm sure you've already heard all this.

15:45

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It's a great story.

15:47

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You know, and, wow, Re-Imagining, that's, you know,

15:48

and the theme from the World Council of Churches was

15:51

the church in solidarity with

15:56

women, God, and church, you know, kind of thing, and,

16:01

and what would it mean to re-imagine it,

16:05

and that really, I mean, when I first started meet,

16:07

and I've included Joanne, um, Ringen.

16:11

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Jo Ringgenberg?

16:16

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Who just recently died.

16:17

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Yes, yes.

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And, um, and I served as parish associate at her church

16:19

for a year, a few years ago, so I got to reconnect with Jo.

16:21

And just some really fine people, you know,

16:27

and then the two men, of course, were Randy Nelson,

16:31

who I worked with,

16:35

'cause I was doing contextual studies at United,

16:36

he did contextual studies at Luther,

16:39

and Manley Olsen, and when I made the comment at dinner that

16:41

I had just recently told the chair of the nominating

16:45

committee to leave me alone, that currently is Manley Olsen,

16:49

and Manley and Ann and I are still friends.

16:52

And just, you know, these two amazing, fine men.

16:56

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Oh, yes.

16:59

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With this group of women,

and there was another Presbyterian woman

17:01

whose first name was Karen,

17:04

and shortly after the Re-Imagining,

17:06

she and her husband moved, I think, to Connecticut,

17:08

and, um, I can't think of her last name.

17:11

But, anyway, Karen and I realized one day we were the two

17:15

youngest on the committee.

17:18

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Really.

17:20

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Um, and,

I was,

17:22

well, I turned

17:25

40 while we were planning it, and she was not quite 40,

17:28

and all the other women were older,

17:34

and she and I had coffee one day and realized

17:36

that these women,

17:39

and one of the things I taught in Christian Ed. for years

17:42

was generational differences,

17:44

and how to work with people in your congregation

17:47

when you had

17:50

the, um,

17:54

G.I. generation, some places still pre-G.I., but,

17:55

the G.I. generation, the silent generation, the boomers,

18:00

and the Gen-X, and that all women,

18:03

I think, with maybe one other exception,

18:07

but most of the women who planned Re-Imagining were

18:10

silent generation or the very beginning of the boomers.

18:17

And all the years I taught generational differences,

18:22

I would say, you know, the silent generation was called that

18:27

by male sociologists because the white men were silent,

18:31

but the people who came out of that generation

18:36

were Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Gloria Steinem,

18:39

you know, that because, some things happened where,

18:44

all the people that

18:49

Hillary

18:53

is currently lifting up in her presidential campaign

18:54

were the people, who, in that generation, said,

18:58

we're not gonna keep quiet anymore,

19:01

and as I started working with these women, and I had,

19:03

you know, as much I'd worked in the corporate

19:07

and nonprofit world in Seattle,

19:08

I was just starting into this academic

19:10

theological education environment,

19:13

immersed with these women,

19:16

who, many had graduated from where I was teaching,

19:19

but they were

19:22

more immersed and

19:25

articulate in a deeper, more radical

19:28

feminist theology

19:33

than I had from all of my studies with Letty Russell.

19:35

Does that make sense?

19:38

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Wow, it does, that's amazing, yeah.

19:39

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And so, I always knew I was not who they wanted me to be.

19:42

You know, they kept pushing me to be more radical.

19:47

And instead of being in tears with the backlash,

19:49

I should just tell them off, and, you know, but,

19:52

I have, I still have such respect for those women

19:56

who really had the vision to start the whole thing,

20:01

and, of course, Mary Bednarowski and I

20:05

taught on the faculty,

20:08

Mary was on the search committee that hired me at United.

20:09

Pam Joern,

20:12

one of Pan Joern's closest friends for several years,

20:15

who now has moved back to Seattle,

20:19

directed my first master's degree at the University

20:23

of Washington.

20:26

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Oh my gosh.

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And when I moved to town, May said, you know, honey,

20:27

you need to meet Pam Joern.

20:30

And I walk into this meeting, and she said, hi,

20:32

I'm Pam Joern, and I said,

20:34

Maybelle said I needed to meet you, and she said, I know,

20:35

she's been telling me the same thing.

20:38

And then of course Sally Hill I had met

20:40

through the Presbytery already.

20:42

And so, I started realizing these three women had breakfast

20:44

once a month, and conceived this whole thing,

20:47

and then Mary, being Mary, said,

20:51

I don't need to be in the planning of it, I'll just,

20:54

you know, I'll just talk with you.

20:56

Mary's always been a mover and shaker behind the wall.

20:57

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Oh.

21:00

This is Mary Bednarowski.

21:02

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Yes, and Sally took leadership,

21:03

and Pam came and created,

21:05

and gave her artistic creative voice,

21:08

and they wrote the play.

21:12

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Yes.

21:13

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So, that, yeah.

21:16

This is really fun,

21:18

I haven't talked about this for probably,

21:19

at least 15 years, if not longer.

21:23

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And it's great to hear it,

21:26

especially 'cause you were there, going through this.

21:27

Now, I'm just curious, you had been in the corporate world,

21:29

you'd been doing other things,

21:32

I'm just wondering what,

21:33

how you would compare that to how this group operated,

21:35

I mean, their process, their method, their style.

21:38

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Well, um.

21:43

It was a wonderful gift to be in a room with a bunch

21:46

of very strong women who had

21:48

a lot of respect for each other

21:52

and by the time I started with them, you know,

21:55

Sally was staff, and,

21:58

Presbyterian clergy always say to church leaders,

22:02

I am here to enable you to do what you need to do,

22:05

and that's how she was working with Mary Kay and Kathy,

22:08

and Mary Kay and Kathy, of course, even then, were amazing,

22:11

and sort of continued to mature that way.

22:15

So, there was a lot of,

22:21

I actually remember sitting in this room at the

22:24

church center,

22:26

not talking, which, you know,

22:30

you know me well enough to know that's surprising.

22:32

I was just fascinated by these conversations,

22:35

and of course, having just completed the MDiv,

22:37

and the doctorate over those

22:42

seven previous years, you know,

22:45

and they're sitting and talking about Beth Harrison,

22:48

and Rita Nakashima Brock, and Kwok Pui Lan,

22:50

and all these people, and I'm thinking, oh, my gosh,

22:53

I get to meet the, oh, we're gonna.

22:57

(speech drowned out by laughter)

22:59

You know, um.

23:00

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Yes.

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I felt like a little kid.

23:02

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Yeah.

23:04

And what was the '93 conference like?

23:06

I know you did a workshop, so I wanna hear about that,

23:09

and I wanna hear about any other memories, moments for you.

23:11

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I have some particular memories on some of these,

23:17

I still wear my Re-Imagining t-shirt.

23:21

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Do you.

23:23

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I sleep in it.

23:24

But sometimes I just put it on to remind myself

23:25

I'm a woman of strength, isn't that wonderful?

23:28

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Yes!

23:30

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And I still have my Re-Imagining,

23:31

do you have a Re-Imagining mug?

23:32

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I do, yes.

23:34

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Isn't that fun?

23:35

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It is.

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But, um, I still have my Re-Imagining bag, too.

23:36

Okay, let me just give you some

23:43

things that just continue to pop up for me.

23:46

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Yes.

23:48

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One was,

as we were planning, every time we met, in, you know,

23:51

first we were praying for 1200,

23:56

because we kept saying,

23:59

and they've probably given you the accurate numbers,

24:00

but what I remember was,

24:02

okay, 1500 people will pay for it,

24:05

1200, we can pull it off and find financing,

24:08

and so, we just started praying that somehow,

24:13

somewhere in this country,

24:16

1200 women would wanna come and be part of this,

24:18

and then

24:21

we hit 12, and then we hit 15, and then we hit 17,

24:24

and we're going, oh, my God!

24:29

(laughing)

24:31

And I remember, shortly before the event,

24:32

Sally, I think it was Sally, said,

24:37

okay, we've been charting all the registrations,

24:41

and we're now up over 1900,

24:43

and

24:47

we have someone coming from every state in the country

24:49

except one.

24:52

Have you heard this story?

24:54

-

No, no, I love it, I know that was true,

24:55

I've never heard the story, please!

24:57

-

And does, can anybody guess what the one state is?

24:58

Well, of course we all decided it had to be Utah,

25:02

'cause of the, oh no, it was Nevada.

25:04

(laughing)

25:07

We went, Navada?

25:08

Why wouldn't people be coming from Las Vegas?

25:09

And, and then of course what blew us away,

25:13

and I'm sure you've got the accurate number,

25:16

I remember that it was like 13 or 14 other countries.

25:18

I mean, it was just huge.

25:23

-

It was, I think it was 27 countries.

25:24

-

Okay.

25:26

-

Yeah.

-

And lots of people from Canada, interesting,

25:27

Canada, if I remember correctly,

25:31

the registration from Canada was almost equal men and women.

25:34

-

Oh, I didn't know that!

25:38

-

A lot of men and women.

25:39

Oh, and Lois Wilson came from Canada,

25:42

and of course being a Christian educator,

25:45

she had written all these wonderful children's books

25:47

on

25:50

women,

25:52

that could be used with young girls,

25:55

and it was just amazing stuff,

25:58

so I was very excited to meet her.

26:00

But, that, you know, realizing that we didn't know if we had

26:03

enough room, that we were gonna have to cap it,

26:07

I mean, the day somebody said, we're gonna have to cap this,

26:10

and we looked at each other and just cheered,

26:13

like, oh my gosh!

26:15

It's happening, and it's out of control.

26:17

-

Yes.

26:20

-

I mean, that's what we realized.

26:21

It is out of our control.

26:22

This is just happening.

26:24

And we had been very carefully advertising it as

26:26

the Council of Church's response,

26:29

mid-cycle response,

26:33

to the decade of church and solidarity with women.

26:35

And, and, we found out later on that the

26:40

Geneva World Council had publicized it as the

26:44

Mid-Decade Conference, and we're all going,

26:47

oh, we're just this little thing

26:50

and it just started happening!

26:51

-

Wow.

26:53

-

So, that was one, another was the,

26:54

during the conference, every time I turned around,

26:59

I ran into somebody else I knew from

27:03

all over the place.

27:08

-

Really.

-

And, um,

27:11

yeah, from Wisconsin,

27:13

somebody I'd known in Seattle,

27:15

who at that point was doing campus ministry in Wisconsin,

27:17

and then later came,

27:21

she told me while she was at the Re-Imagining conference

27:22

she had just accepted the position to be the chaplain

27:25

at Macalester.

27:27

-

Oh my goodness!

-

So, Lucy Forster-Smith let me know she was coming,

27:29

and I had known her when she and Tom were

27:31

the campus ministers at the University of Washington,

27:35

having just graduated from Princeton,

27:38

while I was heading up the adult education program

27:40

at my church, preparing to go to Princeton.

27:44

They were younger than me,

27:48

I did all of it a decade later than everybody else.

27:49

So, that's one, two,

27:52

that just, realizing people were coming from everywhere,

27:56

or people walking up to me and saying,

27:59

weren't you at Princeton, I'm going, yeah,

28:01

oh, well I was, I think I was a year ahead of you.

28:03

I mean, just, all kinds of connections.

28:05

Number three was

28:08

how we planned

28:11

the everyday dynamics.

28:14

The moving tables.

28:16

-

Yes.

28:17

-

And all the tables being covered with paper,

28:18

so people could color and draw.

28:21

-

Yes.

28:23

-

And, um.

28:24

It was,

28:28

it was an embodiment of,

28:31

we wanna build community that shows people

28:34

you don't have to be hierarchical, that everybody can,

28:37

everybody's needs can be met over a four day period,

28:42

because one morning you were right in front of the stage,

28:46

then the next morning,

28:50

you might be further back on another side,

28:52

and if you wanted to complain about that,

28:54

then think about the person, who, because you had moved,

28:57

got to sit up front.

28:59

And it was just always, you know, folks,

29:00

we're learning how to do this, in a feminist way that says,

29:03

we're not doing it like other people plan things for us,

29:09

we're doing it how we wanna plan it for ourselves.

29:12

And that was the thing that I mentioned earlier,

29:15

that my colleague Lance Barker had said to me,

29:18

after I had gotten one of my horrible, obscene phone calls

29:22

from the backlash, at seminary, that he said to me,

29:25

with this smirk on his face, said,

29:29

well, it's amazing how upset men can become when they

29:32

discover that women can do things,

29:35

women can plan things and do things with no men in charge.

29:36

(laughing)

29:40

You know, and, I mean, I just laughed that day,

29:42

he just saved me, because I realized that for two,

29:45

for more than two years, that's what we had planned,

29:49

with these two amazingly strong, wonderful men on the

29:51

committee contributing--

29:55

-

Yes.

-

Along with us, as part of this community.

29:57

We valued Randy and Manley for being with us.

30:01

-

Exactly.

30:06

-

And, um, and that was another one.

30:07

Another one was, us singing, um,

30:11

the songs that we would sing and always,

30:16

you know, the amazing harmonies in this full room

30:21

at the convention center.

30:24

Full.

30:26

And, um,

30:28

I always was trying to make sure everybody had their

30:30

evaluation forms.

30:32

(laughing)

30:33

But the other one, now, let me tell you,

30:35

so, as we're talking about planning workshops,

30:37

the educator in me said,

30:40

it sounds like all the workshops are geared for women who

30:43

are already grown and have already gone through

30:47

what we've gone through.

30:49

Why are we not saying to these women and men who are coming,

30:53

here's how to raise your children differently.

30:57

-

Yes.

31:00

-

Oh, no one's gonna come to that.

31:02

And finally, somebody said, you know,

31:04

you're teaching youth ministry, children's ministry,

31:07

do you wanna do that?

31:10

And I said, I would really like to do, you know,

31:11

equipping, teaching children through a feminist perspective,

31:14

I can't remember what I called it.

31:17

And, um,

31:20

maybe it was something like

31:23

Growing Up Feminist in the Church.

31:24

But, um,

31:26

they said okay, and when rooms were assigned,

31:28

I got one of the smallest rooms in the conference center

31:31

assigned.

31:35

And they were literally packed and out in the hallway,

31:39

and at first,

31:42

when I said here's what we're gonna talk about,

31:44

we're going to talk about

31:46

how to approach

31:50

educating

31:52

and, admittedly, folks, limited time,

31:54

we're gonna focus primarily on educating girls,

31:56

and teen girls,

32:00

to see

32:04

God, the church, and leadership, through feminist eyes.

32:06

And, and somebody said, well, what about us?

32:12

And I said, everything else in this conference is about us.

32:15

This is about our children,

32:19

and if we keep having to say, okay, now you're 22,

32:20

let us tell you how you've been abused,

32:24

and how you can think about it differently,

32:27

are we not missing this whole opportunity to raise

32:29

children up this way.

32:32

-

Yes.

-

So, that's what I did, and, um,

32:35

and I assume you've got the Church and Society book.

32:39

-

I do.

32:42

-

And then I also, I edited that, but then I also,

32:46

we did the United one that I assume Mary gave you,

32:50

that each woman on the faculty did this.

32:54

-

Yes, yes, I have that too.

32:56

-

And I think that,

I didn't talk about the evaluation,

32:58

I talked about my workshop.

32:59

-

Yes, okay.

33:01

-

So that's in there.

-

Great.

33:03

-

But it was,

33:05

it was a reminder to me that

33:07

even feminists just wanna make the world,

33:12

first of all, better for them, without saying how do we,

33:15

how do we

33:20

change everything, not how can I change the world for me,

33:22

but how do we really change it,

33:25

and how do we talk about God, you know,

33:27

at what age do we say to a child,

33:31

Jesus taught his disciples to pray,

33:35

my God, Father and Mother of us all.

33:38

Or,

33:43

Jesus said, ah, the Father,

33:45

because in those days, if he would have said,

33:48

Mommy!

33:52

It would not have been acceptable,

33:54

and it would have had no authority.

33:55

How do we teach children that authority has to change

33:58

for women to be accepted

34:03

and valued,

34:06

and that that's true for teenage girls and young girls

34:08

to be valued in the church.

34:13

That, you know,

34:18

I mean, you've already heard my story.

34:21

I grew up in an environment where boys were being encouraged

34:23

to be altar boys and become priests,

34:26

and girls could be come sisters, which, of course,

34:29

is still an incredibly important role in the

34:32

Catholic church, although there aren't many

34:35

nuns' communities anymore,

34:37

but it was, it is inherently second class,

34:41

because men can be

34:46

Fathers or monastic brothers,

34:48

women can only be sisters, no mothers.

34:52

And part of my leaving the Catholic church and becoming

34:58

Presbyterian was because I discovered a form of government

35:01

and a particular church

35:04

where there were lots of women in leadership.

35:07

And the first ordination,

35:11

I came up also in high school through Young Life,

35:12

and my Young Life leader went off to Princeton Seminary,

35:15

and I went to her ordination in Washington state when she

35:21

was ordained, and I had by then just left

35:25

the Catholic church and become, became Protestant,

35:29

Presbyterian, and she was being ordained Presbyterian.

35:32

And I always cherished the fact that the first ordination

35:36

in the Presbyterian I ever went to was of a woman

35:42

who had

35:45

nurtured my Evangelical faith all through high school.

35:47

-

That is wonderful.

35:51

-

I've really been blessed with amazing

35:52

encounters with

35:55

wonderful women who shaped me and encouraged me

35:57

and stepped on me

36:02

and taught me a lot about

36:06

women can do it differently,

36:09

but women are sinners just like men,

36:11

and ego trips are not helpful, and,

36:15

shared authority,

36:20

well, you asked how we functioned,

36:22

shared authority always had to be worked on.

36:24

-

Yes.

36:26

Yeah.

36:27

-

But by the time I got very far into that committee,

36:29

you know, as I said,

36:32

the committee had already started gathering,

36:33

and I think they had already sorted some of that out

36:35

before I got there.

36:37

-

Yeah, could you say some,

36:38

I know you were in charge of evaluations, and, you know,

36:39

you had a great story about that.

36:41

I just wanted you to say a little bit about that.

36:44

-

So, the important things about the evaluations is,

36:46

as people were leaving,

36:49

they were coming up to me and saying,

36:52

now, this is gonna be read, right?

36:54

I mean, they wanted people to know what their experience was

36:56

and I said, oh, yeah, and I had this box, and I just kept,

36:59

and people were coming from other doors and saying, here,

37:02

my box is full, and I'd say, go back!

37:04

Go and get more!

37:06

And, um,

37:07

so I took all these evaluations.

37:10

We had over 2,000 people there,

37:12

and I took all these evaluations out to my car,

37:15

and got home and just dropped them in my living room.

37:18

And a few days later, I looked at this box,

37:21

two boxes, just stacks of paper, and I thought,

37:25

there are a lot of these.

37:30

So I started counting them out.

37:32

And I thought, well, you know,

37:35

maybe we've got over 1,000,

37:37

so I started counting the piles of hundreds, you know,

37:38

50 piled, so I'd have a pile of two 50s,

37:42

so I could, do,

37:46

and pretty soon it was just sort of all over my living room

37:48

floor, and I thought, okay, so this all becomes 500,

37:50

and this all becomes 500, oh my gosh,

37:55

and pretty soon I went, oh my gosh, and this becomes 500,

37:58

which meant I had over 1500.

38:01

And I had over

38:03

1700.

38:06

And,

38:07

and I was counting them, I'd see things,

38:10

and I'd, no, no, I gotta count them all first,

38:12

and then I took one pile of 500 and sat down and

38:16

just started reading, and, you know,

38:19

what brought you here,

38:23

and very, very broad, you know,

38:26

I wanted to know

38:30

what, why I shouldn't leave the church.

38:32

I wanted to know if women really could speak freely.

38:34

Along with, I wanted,

38:41

I wanted to know if there was anybody else in the country

38:44

that was as mad at the church as I was, or, you know,

38:47

I wanted to know if I could talk out loud,

38:50

saying God, she, or,

38:54

you know, when I have my period and menstruate,

38:56

I go back and reread Genesis 1.

39:01

I mean, just these amazing stories of people saying,

39:04

you don't have to tell me that God,

39:08

creator, is not a he, I do this every month,

39:12

you know, and just amazing kinds of stuff.

39:17

And then, you know,

39:21

what did you

39:23

experience.

39:25

Which just,

39:26

you know, some people said I found it very confusing,

39:28

you kept changing our tables every time.

39:30

I got there early enough, why couldn't I get a front table,

39:33

and I'd think, I don't wanna be on a committee with you!

39:35

(laughing)

39:38

but, people saying, you know,

39:39

when you first started moving us around,

39:40

I found it frustrating, and after about three days,

39:42

I thought, this is amazing, we're all equal!

39:46

And you could just sort of see as people talked, or wrote,

39:51

that even as they were writing, lights were coming on.

39:55

And the Re-Imagining office got some afterwards

40:01

that I added, too.

40:05

-

Wow.

40:07

-

But people could hardly wait to turn these forms in,

40:09

and then another question was, you know,

40:12

what do you take away with you,

40:15

what do you hope will be different,

40:17

I mean those kinds of things, and just profound stuff.

40:18

So, I packed it all up and I sent it off to the research

40:23

services at Presbyterian Church USA, independent,

40:27

we had contracted with them as an independent body

40:32

to do this for us, it was not because I was Presbyterian,

40:35

we paid them as an independent contractor,

40:38

and that was never private.

40:45

People, when they got wind of it,

40:46

they made it very clear, it's in the information,

40:49

you know, we were contracted, da, da, da, da, da,

40:52

contract service to the Re-Imagining community,

40:55

and, um,

40:59

and then the backlash started, and, you know,

41:02

I would get,

41:06

especially from some people who belonged to a couple

41:08

of Presbyterian churches in particular in the Twin Cities,

41:11

really nasty

41:15

letters and phone calls,

41:18

and

41:20

being attacked on the floor of Presbyterian.

41:21

Yeah, be called heretics and witches and

41:25

all these kinds of things, you know,

41:27

degrading God by saying that God has a period,

41:30

we're all going,

41:33

should your wife be degraded because she could

41:35

have your children?

41:37

I mean,

41:38

but, anyway.

41:39

I can tell you right where that meeting was.

41:42

-

Yeah.

41:44

-

What church it was in.

-

Yes, wow.

41:46

-

And then out of the clear blue one day,

41:48

I got a phone call

41:50

from the director of the research services in,

41:52

at the Presbyterian church in Louisville,

41:54

and he said,

41:57

we've got it all inputted,

42:00

and we're starting to get some data,

42:02

but I don't really have anything to get you yet.

42:06

And I said, that's fine, you know,

42:08

we gave you like a three month period, and,

42:10

or, yeah, a three month period, and this was like a month,

42:12

but the backlash had really started,

42:16

and he said, I'm just calling with a question,

42:18

and I said, okay, and he said,

42:22

I have read a lot of these and I imagine you have,

42:25

and I said, well,

42:28

I read most of them sitting in my living room, and he said,

42:29

this is the most amazing evaluations I have ever read.

42:34

People's lives were changed,

42:39

and people were profoundly excited to get back and share

42:42

with people what they had heard and what they were thinking

42:46

about and what church could be.

42:49

Why is everybody so mad at you?

42:52

And I said, welcome to my world, we are trying to figure,

42:55

and I said, you know, at one point,

42:59

we're trying to figure that out, at another point,

43:02

we know

43:04

that

43:06

the layman and others were there,

43:09

I knew Williamson, I met him when I moved to Richmond,

43:13

I didn't know him, but I knew who he was,

43:17

and I knew who he had placed within the Re-Imagining,

43:19

and started writing these outrageous things

43:23

about what we were doing,

43:26

and he and I had this,

43:32

what became a very

43:35

healing conversation for me,

43:37

to hear from this

43:40

white man who knew nothing about the conference,

43:43

who was just reading what people had written,

43:46

what it meant to them,

43:51

and he was saying to me,

43:53

in many ways,

43:57

I think this is even more amazing than you realize it was,

43:59

and when they sent the data back and I started reading

44:02

all this stuff and then we met, and I distributed,

44:06

you know, this is what we're getting back,

44:10

and, of course,

44:13

nobody

44:15

in the public wanted to deal with that a lot,

44:16

because that wasn't as interesting as

44:19

women, especially in Arizona,

44:23

Presbyterian women losing their jobs,

44:26

and

44:28

people being attacked, I was protected,

44:30

the president at United Seminary at the time

44:33

was Ben Griffin, and Ben told Chris Smith, Mary Bednarowski,

44:37

me, well, Mary had spoken,

44:42

but Chris had come out as a lesbian,

44:45

and I was one of the planners, and I was Presbyterian, so,

44:47

I got most of the direct backlash,

44:53

Chris and I did.

44:57

But I was also getting it through my denomination,

45:01

and Ben told the

45:05

school operator,

45:09

you know the old days when everybody called one number,

45:11

you know, well, I'm calling about the Re-Imagining

45:14

conference, her response would be to say, hold on please,

45:16

and she was to put the person straight through

45:20

to Ben and Ben would.

45:23

-

Really, wow.

45:25

-

And he said at a faculty meeting one day,

45:27

I cannot believe the venom coming out of people's mouths,

45:31

and it's not all men, it's even some women.

45:35

And we all went, well, everybody gets threatened.

45:39

But, um,

45:42

I felt,

45:44

at United Chris and I had many conversations about just

45:46

feeling very protected

45:51

by Ben

45:55

and Wilson Yates, who was dean,

45:57

and knowing that we would never be fired.

46:00

Now, the other piece you've probably heard

46:04

from people is what happened to Madeline Sue.

46:06

-

Yeah, but say some more,

46:09

do you wanna talk about that, it's okay?

46:10

-

Yeah, um,

46:11

Sue Seid-Martin, Madeleine Sue Martin,

46:14

was on the staff at Saint Paul's Seminary

46:18

in liturgy,

46:21

and she chaired

46:24

the liturgics committee,

46:26

and planned

46:29

what was done.

46:31

They just did this amazing job.

46:33

And, you know, and people were terribly upset

46:36

that one of the things that came out from James Dobson's

46:40

Focus on the Family was that we had ridiculed communion,

46:46

and we never mentioned communion,

46:53

it was a Council of Churches event,

46:55

we could not mention communion.

46:57

But what we talked about was being fed like God had fed

47:00

the children in the wilderness,

47:05

and that the manna that we are being given,

47:07

and so we had lots of images and songs and liturgies

47:11

around manna.

47:14

Manna, and we wanted to say to people, Old Testament!

47:16

(laughing)

47:21

Not Jesus, Old Testament!

47:22

God's been faithful even longer than Jesus.

47:24

And, um, really, really ugly stuff.

47:28

Well, um,

47:31

the archdiocese of the Twin Cities

47:34

at that point,

47:37

the powers that be chose to,

47:41

and of course, bless Sophia, Sophia, even before then,

47:44

you know this better than I do,

47:49

was an acceptable image in Catholic theology,

47:51

and so, as we sang Bless Sophia,

47:57

oh well, you know, now they're making Sophia god.

48:02

Well, yeah, wisdom's not a bad image.

48:06

But, anyway,

48:08

Madeline Sue was told

48:10

that she no longer had a place

48:14

at

48:17

Saint Paul's Seminary,

48:19

and I think she gave slightly different versions

48:20

to different people,

48:24

given depths of friendship,

48:28

which, of course we all do.

48:30

-

Sure.

48:31

-

But, it got back to us very quickly,

48:32

and I believe Madeline had first told Mary,

48:37

or had told somebody who called Mary,

48:40

and said--

48:43

-

Mary Bednarowski.

-

Yeah.

48:44

-

Yeah.

-

And said, Madeline Sue's about to lose her job

48:45

at, um,

48:48

Luther,

48:51

at, um--

48:52

-

Saint Paul.

-

Saint Paul's.

48:53

-

And this was the archdiocese

that decided this?

48:55

-

Well, the,

48:56

well, you know, the rector reports to--

48:58

-

Yes, right.

49:00

-

The cathedral.

49:01

-

Right.

-

And so it had come down from the

49:05

powers that be, and it was the rector

49:07

who had talked to her.

49:10

And I got a lot of this from the other friend that we

49:14

talked about at dinner,

49:17

who was a friend of mine at Saint Paul, so.

49:19

-

Yep, yep.

49:21

-

A good guy.

(faint speaking)

49:21

-

Right.

49:23

-

And, um,

49:25

so, I believe it was Mary who went down and met with Wilson,

49:27

and said,

49:32

as

49:36

president, Ben teaches worship,

49:38

wouldn't it be helpful to have someone on the faculty

49:41

who could do music and liturgy?

49:43

And without missing a beat,

49:47

Wilson and Ben brought to the faculty for us

49:51

to hire Sue Seid-Martin.

49:55

-

Oh, wow.

49:57

-

And she was part of our community until she died.

50:00

And Dawn Conn designed

50:05

the pall

50:09

for her coffin,

50:11

and all the vestments that the priest wore,

50:13

and they were red, no they were

50:17

red and purple, and were dancing women,

50:21

and I am proud to say that I went to Dawn and said,

50:26

I don't have a good Pentecost stole.

50:31

Do you think Madeline Sue would mind if you used the image

50:35

of the dancing women and made my Pentecost stole?

50:38

Which is red, with dancing women.

50:41

As the holy spirit continues to dance,

50:46

as we danced at Re-Imagining.

50:48

-

Oh, I love that.

50:51

-

And it's almost Pentecost, I get to wear it again!

50:53

And I wear it, of course, at every ordination,

50:55

'cause it's my red stole,

50:58

and I always put it on and say, you know,

51:00

I have thanked Dawn for it more than once,

51:03

'cause she is still doing liturgical art

51:05

through Robbinsdale UCC,

51:08

but I always put it on and say,

51:11

oh Madeline Sue, you're still with me.

51:13

-

Oh, I love that.

51:15

-

'Cause Madeline Sue was the one that said, you know,

51:17

we just need movement, and art and,

51:19

and she really, she, and Pam is the poet,

51:24

and Madeline Sue is the liturgical musician,

51:26

really,

51:30

well, in,

51:32

what was her name, was a potter, Sue Swanson.

51:34

You know, we had some amazing.

51:39

-

Yes.

51:41

-

Artistic people.

51:42

-

Absolutely.

-

And they just brought it all in and said,

51:44

this is what the church can give out.

51:46

-

Yes.

51:47

-

So, that's manna, so we ended up with,

51:49

once, you know, denied it, literally,

51:52

the administration and the faculty at United said

51:55

we're not only going to protect the people who teach

51:58

on our faculty, we will invite Sue,

52:00

and at that point she went by Sue Seid-Martin,

52:03

in later years she went to Madeline Sue.

52:05

-

Wow, that is amazing,

52:08

I didn't actually know that about United, that's wonderful.

52:10

You know, you experienced the backlash,

52:13

you talk about other people who experienced it too,

52:15

what is, how do you account for it?

52:17

What caused this backlash, Barbara Anne?

52:20

-

Fear

52:26

that.

52:29

Well, I can put it two different ways,

52:37

having come out of a more

52:39

Evangelical background.

52:41

-

Yeah.

-

I think there are people who honestly believe

52:43

that what we were doing was pure blasphemy,

52:49

and they couldn't

52:53

reimagine it.

52:55

(laughing)

52:56

In any other way.

52:58

-

Right, yeah.

-

I think, I believe,

53:01

I believe,

53:05

as Lance so

53:07

helpfully said it to me that day and many other times,

53:09

he and his wife, who was a minister.

53:12

No.

53:21

His wife who was a Methodist minister

53:23

had already died by then.

53:25

But, anyway, he knew the church,

53:27

through the image of men and women,

53:29

and, um,

53:31

I think it has a lot to do with fear.

53:33

When I was at Princeton,

53:40

I went to Princeton Seminary in my 30s,

53:42

and I had already

53:46

gone through

53:49

inclusive language

53:51

stuff happening, teaching at the University of Washington,

53:53

and working for a college textbook publishing company

53:57

that began to require

54:00

human inclusive language

54:02

in the

54:05

late '70s to early '80s.

54:06

And I would talk with professors who were gonna be writing

54:11

for the publishing company, saying, you know,

54:15

this is why we want to use human language,

54:19

so that, it's just a way of including all of your students.

54:22

And then on Sunday morning I'd go to this

54:27

Evangelical church, Presbyterian church,

54:29

Tall Steeple church in Seattle,

54:32

and God was He, and we were all men,

54:37

and I started thinking about that and wondering about that,

54:45

and why what I was doing with academic authors

54:50

felt so much more whole to me at times than

54:57

what I was getting at church.

55:00

And it never made me angry, I just thought,

55:02

this makes more sense to be inclusive and whole,

55:07

and expansive language.

55:10

-

Yes.

-

And then I went to Princeton,

55:13

and I was in seminary with a number of women

55:16

who were

55:21

eight to 10 years younger than I was.

55:25

And one of my closest friends was a woman who,

55:28

I was 32 when we started and she was like, 39,

55:33

and was very savvy and articulate, and,

55:38

and we started referring to these women

55:43

as the angry young feminists, because,

55:45

in their first year at seminary,

55:50

often in the first theology course,

55:53

they would be reading all this theology,

55:56

and as Presbyterians, at some point in our first

55:59

two years,

56:05

we had to take Greek and Hebrew.

56:08

So, we started translating scripture that,

56:11

odum, Adam, odum, meant dirt,

56:16

you know, and that we are all made out of dirt.

56:19

And it didn't have anything to do with

56:23

sexual

56:26

organs, or,

56:29

physical makeup, or, you know, we were all created equal.

56:30

And this was, I mean I was already,

56:36

I had already campaigned for

56:38

gay rights in Seattle,

56:42

for gay couples to be able to register for

56:44

partnership so they'd be covered by insurance,

56:47

we were doing in that in the early '80s in Seattle.

56:50

But I hadn't really translated all of,

56:57

I was fully aware of gays and lesbians that I knew

56:59

were gay, that I knew who went to church, but,

57:03

it wasn't on the forefront of my thinking,

57:08

as it became when I went to United,

57:10

and had a lot of gay and lesbian students.

57:14

And a lot of people thought,

57:19

when I started speaking out for gay rights in Richmond

57:22

while I was doing my doctorate

57:25

in '90-'91, when our first position papers in the

57:28

Presbyterian church to ordain gays and lesbians first came

57:32

out and I spoke on the floor

57:37

of Presbyterian Richmond for it,

57:39

and a man who took great pride of being a southern

57:42

white male who had marched in Selma,

57:46

and civil rights were very important to him,

57:51

and I ran into him on campus about three days after this

57:54

Presbyterian meeting where I had spoken out.

57:58

And he, we were talking, and he said,

58:01

I just wanna say to you, from your perspective,

58:04

I understand why this is so important.

58:08

And I looked at him, and I thought,

58:11

he thinks I'm a lesbian.

58:14

And I looked, and I, without any just change, I said,

58:17

you know, and I won't use his name either,

58:21

but I said, you know,

58:24

I bet nobody thought you were black when you marched

58:26

for civil rights.

58:28

And he got this odd look on his face, and he went,

58:31

oh my God, you're right, I am so sorry.

58:36

And I said, well, don't apologize to me,

58:40

I mean, whether or not I'm a lesbian doesn't matter.

58:42

But you jumped to that conclusion.

58:44

-

Right.

58:47

-

And, um,

58:49

and it's those kinds of,

58:51

of, fear, or, not where we're in the middle of

58:54

a presidential race right now that's throwing all this

58:59

out there, I think people who have been raised to say,

59:02

okay,

59:07

your authority,

59:09

your male pastor,

59:12

your

59:14

parentis, you know, the Father image,

59:17

stood up there and said to you, God, He,

59:20

is a creator, God, He,

59:26

is the authority.

59:29

And to

59:30

imagine that that could be

59:33

not even wrong,

59:37

but expanded in ways

59:38

that that man

59:42

would have told you is wrong,

59:44

you can't accept, because if he was wrong about that,

59:47

he could be wrong about other things,

59:51

and that whole fear of everything that my faith stands on

59:52

could be cracking.

59:57

-

Yes.

59:59

-

There is nothing more frightening for people

1:00:01

than to, and you know this better than I do,

1:00:04

you teach theology,

1:00:06

but there is nothing more frightening for people

1:00:08

than to say, you know,

1:00:10

that's a good theological perspective,

1:00:13

but it's not the only one that might be valid.

1:00:15

But if it's truth, it has to be the only one.

1:00:18

And I think what happened in this whole backlash was

1:00:22

a fear

1:00:28

that if there's more than one way to talk about God,

1:00:30

to experience God,

1:00:34

it's like some of the early ecumenical conversations,

1:00:37

you know,

1:00:41

well, I grew up,

1:00:43

I grew up in a neighborhood where

1:00:44

we were the only Catholics in the neighborhood.

1:00:47

Now, obviously, walking to a Catholic school halfway down,

1:00:50

I was walking with a group of friends, but,

1:00:53

in the couple of blocks where we all went out at night

1:00:56

and played hide-and-seek together and played

1:01:00

with each other, I was the only,

1:01:02

we were the only Catholic family,

1:01:04

and across the alley was the Methodist manse,

1:01:05

and across the street was the Methodist college,

1:01:08

and there were a whole lot of Presbyterians, Methodists,

1:01:10

and American Baptists,

1:01:15

and then there were the good Irish Catholics, the Keelys.

1:01:18

And when Kennedy

1:01:22

ran for president,

1:01:24

I remember the kid on the corner, with the name of Bill,

1:01:27

cornering me in his yard and just letting me have it,

1:01:31

that a Catholic could never be president,

1:01:35

because then the Pope would be running the country,

1:01:38

and we all know how evil the Pope is, and on and on,

1:01:40

and then it's just planted in my head from that age,

1:01:44

and I was

1:01:49

eight.

1:01:50

That, that,

1:01:52

we were all excited that there was an Irish Catholic

1:01:54

running for president,

1:01:56

and I got it from a kid my age,

1:01:58

who had clearly gotten it from a parent,

1:02:01

somebody, that, how evil this was.

1:02:03

And, so, there are a number of things through my life

1:02:07

that say, when people think

1:02:10

how they've always understood it,

1:02:13

that they're sure is the right way,

1:02:16

that somebody says, hm, well,

1:02:19

this alternative way might also be right, truth, workable,

1:02:20

the idea of expanding it beyond one idea

1:02:29

says that there was an authority that told me

1:02:33

this was the only way,

1:02:38

and if this is not the only way,

1:02:40

then what else did that authority tell me that might not be

1:02:43

truth.

1:02:48

-

Yeah.

1:02:50

-

And, the first church, the second church I didn't,

1:02:51

I did field education all three years I was at Princeton,

1:02:56

first two years I worked in the staff of a large church

1:03:00

and was actually the director of Christian Ed.,

1:03:02

and then my third year I went to serve a smaller church,

1:03:05

closer to New York City,

1:03:09

with a pastor who had been there for quite awhile,

1:03:12

had been through a divorce,

1:03:15

no.

1:03:18

His wife had died,

1:03:19

and he had married a woman who was also

1:03:20

a Presbyterian minister,

1:03:23

and she used inclusive language and all of a sudden

1:03:26

he was using inclusive language from the pulpit,

1:03:28

and, and,

1:03:32

in between having wives, he had such little boundaries,

1:03:34

that he would literally sleep on the couch in the church

1:03:38

so he could be available to people.

1:03:41

And he got married again, and his wife said,

1:03:44

I would like you to come home.

1:03:46

You know, we are going to have a normal life

1:03:48

in the midst of us both pastoring to, you know,

1:03:50

each having a church.

1:03:52

And I had been in that church

1:03:55

since September,

1:03:58

and Martin Luther King weekend, he was preaching,

1:04:01

and he and I were leading worship,

1:04:04

and the choir director man's daughter

1:04:06

was at Union Seminary in Virginia

1:04:11

training to become a pastor.

1:04:14

So they had a child of the woman,

1:04:17

child of the church in seminary.

1:04:19

They had me as their student intern from Princeton,

1:04:22

and this man, on Martin Luther King weekend,

1:04:25

as often happens, he chose to preach on Galatians,

1:04:28

in Christ there is no gentile male or female,

1:04:33

and what he was doing was taking each of those

1:04:37

couplets and talking about them.

1:04:40

And after he had talked about the male-female,

1:04:43

and he started onto another one,

1:04:46

an elder in the church who was of course was sitting

1:04:48

in the very back row, stood up, and said,

1:04:50

pastor, before you go any further,

1:04:53

we need to talk about whether women should be allowed

1:04:56

to lead worship in this church.

1:04:58

Well, of course everyone looked at me,

1:05:02

including the pastor.

1:05:04

-

Oh, my goodness.

1:05:07

-

And I'm sitting down and I'm thinking, okay,

1:05:09

now thank God, at this point, I was mid 30s,

1:05:11

had had my own consulting business in public relations

1:05:16

and fundraising and I didn't freak in public, you know.

1:05:18

But I'm sitting there thinking, alright,

1:05:23

what is going on, and what do I do with this?

1:05:25

And, so as this man starts jabbering,

1:05:28

well, yes, maybe we should talk about it!

1:05:31

And I looked down at this choir director who,

1:05:34

of course, is immediately picturing his own daughter,

1:05:37

and he has this horrified look on his face,

1:05:40

and he's looking at me, and goes, do something!

1:05:42

Okay, I'm the other one up here.

1:05:45

So, I said, I stood up and I said,

1:05:47

actually, are you referring to me?

1:05:51

Well, we could start with you.

1:05:55

And I said, well,

1:05:57

I think this needs to be a larger conversation,

1:05:59

and I honestly think, pastor,

1:06:02

it would be better if you went ahead and finished

1:06:04

your sermon, or at least we continue with worship,

1:06:06

and we can have this conversation in a more conversational

1:06:10

context than the worship of God.

1:06:13

-

Oh, wow.

1:06:17

-

And I sat back down.

1:06:19

And this guy's started, blah, blah, blah,

1:06:21

okay, well, maybe we'll go on.

1:06:22

And worship was over,

1:06:25

and he went to the back door to greet people where

1:06:27

he always did, and I went to the side door right by the

1:06:30

pulpit,

1:06:34

and out came these women in tears,

1:06:37

oh, I can't believe you were treated this way,

1:06:40

and I looked at these two women, and I said,

1:06:43

why would you be surprised,

1:06:45

you've been treating me this way since I arrived here.

1:06:46

-

Wow.

1:06:50

-

And I said, oh, you've made it quite clear

1:06:52

that everything you are upset with him about,

1:06:54

because of his new wife, you have taken out on me.

1:06:58

And these women just all sort of,

1:07:03

and then, of course, they decided the following Sunday

1:07:05

they needed to have a meeting with me and the

1:07:09

Field Ed. Committee, and wanted me to repeat that,

1:07:12

and I said, not only will I repeat it,

1:07:16

I'll give you examples of how I've been treated,

1:07:17

especially by women in this church who have made it clear

1:07:20

to me that I'm the problem,

1:07:24

that he is now using inclusive language.

1:07:26

Hello, you know?

1:07:30

You are angry at his wife and you can't do anything

1:07:32

about that, so you're taking it out on me.

1:07:35

And I started giving examples,

1:07:38

and the woman sitting across from me,

1:07:40

who was a bit older than me, probably in her 50s,

1:07:42

and was vice president of a bank in town, looked at me,

1:07:45

and leaned forward, and went, oh, my God,

1:07:49

we've been treating you the way they treat me at the bank.

1:07:52

I said, welcome to my world.

1:07:54

So, I had had all of that before Re-Imagining.

1:07:57

-

Yes.

1:08:00

-

You know, and I have come up through that world

1:08:01

in the Catholic church, and all this stuff,

1:08:03

so when I got to all of this Re-Imagining backlash,

1:08:06

in my heart of hearts, it was like,

1:08:11

okay, just let me get some sleep, I mean, you know,

1:08:14

but, because of the role I played in the Presbyterian,

1:08:17

the role I played as a new professor at United,

1:08:20

and played in a classroom of people saying,

1:08:22

you know, the women saying, how are you handling this,

1:08:25

who are you mad at, you know, and I'm trying to say,

1:08:27

a lot of different ways, and of course,

1:08:29

women on the faculty were all discussing it,

1:08:31

and discussing it differently 'cause we all were different,

1:08:33

as were the men on the faculty,

1:08:36

everybody supported us at the school, but,

1:08:37

every time I look back on that and these other situations,

1:08:43

it all has to do

1:08:48

with fear

1:08:51

around

1:08:54

my faith,

1:08:56

and even more,

1:08:59

I have based my faith on my understanding of who God is,

1:09:01

and what the church is.

1:09:05

And now you're telling me

1:09:08

that there may be other ways to understand

1:09:11

than how those authorities in my life have told me,

1:09:15

and if I let myself believe what you're telling me,

1:09:20

everything could crumble.

1:09:24

Now, doesn't that make sense?

1:09:26

-

It does, yeah.

1:09:28

-

And, um,

1:09:29

and I still, I still, you know, I mean,

1:09:31

the church I'm in right now,

1:09:35

one of the churches I'm serving right now,

1:09:36

I have a man who says, you know,

1:09:38

the seminaries have not trained pastors,

1:09:40

that is their calling to stay at a church at least 15 years.

1:09:42

I said, nobody stays at the churches 15 years anymore.

1:09:46

And he said, what, this whole culture is just falling apart.

1:09:49

You know, the problem is the communist we've got

1:09:52

as president right now, and all of this, and I,

1:09:54

and I just sit there and take a deep breath,

1:09:57

and, um,

1:09:59

you know, I used to be a really pushy broad,

1:10:01

and through the years what I've discovered,

1:10:03

is when I listen to people

1:10:06

who are getting really off the wall,

1:10:09

I hear real fear

1:10:13

that their world is being challenged.

1:10:15

Their understanding of how the world should work

1:10:19

is being challenged, and when it comes,

1:10:21

you think politics are bad,

1:10:25

you and I both know that the scariest thing

1:10:27

for a college student or a seminarian

1:10:29

is for one of us to say,

1:10:32

you know, we understand that's what your church taught you,

1:10:35

and the priest and the pastor who raised you,

1:10:38

but that's not the only way you can look at it.

1:10:41

The fear, you can see it, the knots in their stomachs that,

1:10:45

and what happened at Re-Imagining on all of the evaluation

1:10:49

forms, was I was seeing

1:10:53

people going, well, I gotta think about this.

1:10:57

People going, oh, my God,

1:11:00

I never knew I could think about it in all these

1:11:03

different ways, and the people who are saying,

1:11:05

oh, thank God, I thought I was crazy and I was the only one

1:11:08

that thought this way.

1:11:11

And that's what all those forms

1:11:12

said to me,

1:11:16

that it was amazing because we gave

1:11:17

a wide spectrum of people

1:11:20

to experience

1:11:23

what they

1:11:26

chose to work with,

1:11:28

and most of them, whatever way they could,

1:11:31

they took it and thought,

1:11:35

this could be good.

1:11:37

Whether it's affirming, whether it's challenging,

1:11:39

or whether I may be in over my head,

1:11:42

I need to go home and think about this.

1:11:44

But, if all was there, in all those forms,

1:11:46

and it's, and,

1:11:51

I think where we, as a Christian, I will say this,

1:11:54

as a Christian educator, I think,

1:11:57

religious educators, Christian educators,

1:11:59

have to take the responsibility

1:12:02

when we write curriculum, publish curriculum,

1:12:04

and say to teachers in our churches,

1:12:08

you need to make sure that they know the answer,

1:12:10

as though there is an answer,

1:12:14

and, and then, of course those teachers look at us and say,

1:12:16

well, what's the answer we're supposed to give them,

1:12:20

'cause we're not sure we know,

1:12:22

and the more

1:12:25

Christian education

1:12:27

started becoming formulaic,

1:12:29

or in the '70s and '80s,

1:12:33

late '60s, but certainly '70s and '80s,

1:12:35

religious education in the Catholic church

1:12:40

opened up and became more interesting,

1:12:42

and the Protestant church,

1:12:45

it became

1:12:48

squishy,

1:12:51

is the nicest word I can give it.

1:12:53

And that, um,

1:12:56

instead of saying here,

1:12:58

memorize this as a framework to think about other things,

1:13:00

and continue to grapple with what that says,

1:13:05

oh no, we don't want them to memorize anything,

1:13:09

we just want them to experience.

1:13:11

And so now we've got all these experiential people,

1:13:14

and their children, teaching in churches,

1:13:17

and they come to me and say what's the answer?

1:13:19

They asked a question, what's the answer?

1:13:22

I said, the best answer you can give them is,

1:13:24

that's a really good question, let's work on it.

1:13:25

That's the Presbyterian theology.

1:13:28

That's why we learn Greek and Hebrew and study all this

1:13:31

other stuff, to keep saying, good question,

1:13:33

let's dig deeper.

1:13:36

And too many people, including in our Presbyterian churches,

1:13:39

look at that and say,

1:13:44

no, that's the way the rest of the world feels.

1:13:45

On Sundays, I come to church for the answer.

1:13:48

I need comfort, I need strength, I need solid ground.

1:13:51

So, this Sunday in my churches,

1:13:57

I'm preaching on the John 13, love one another,

1:13:58

and we're going to start with

1:14:02

the church's one foundation, and I'm going to say,

1:14:05

you know, well, it's Jesus, but it's also the Holy Spirit,

1:14:09

and the Holy Spirit is the dynamic one,

1:14:12

which allows change and movement,

1:14:14

and then after the sermon,

1:14:17

we're going to sing They'll Know We Are Christians

1:14:19

By Our Love, and what does that look like,

1:14:21

and how do we do it?

1:14:24

-

Preach it, Barbara Anne.

1:14:27

-

I know!

1:14:28

(laughing)

1:14:29

But it, you know, it,

1:14:30

I am a different,

1:14:32

I am different woman of faith,

1:14:37

I have a different passion for the church,

1:14:39

and I know my God more deeply and differently

1:14:44

because of the chaos,

1:14:49

and the amazing event called Re-Imagining.

1:14:51

-

That is a great place to end.

1:14:55

-

I thought so.

1:14:56

Keely, Barbara Anne

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

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